How to view readme.xyz.gz files from command line?

drokmed · 02-18-2008, 11:51 AM

Is there an easy way to view text*.gz files from the command line, without uncompressing them?

Midnight Commander can view the text files with it's built in viewer. I'd rather use something like 'more' or 'less', but didn't see how with those.

Thanks

javaroast · 02-18-2008, 11:55 AM

gunzip -c text*.gz |less
or gzcat or zcat if they are installed

drokmed · 02-18-2008, 12:02 PM

I don't see gzcat or zcat packages available. Are they a sub-set of a package?

Sorry, I guess I should have said I'm running Debian Etch 4.0r2.

javaroast · 02-18-2008, 12:05 PM

Yes, the do the same thing as gunzip -c if you are lucky you might even find zless install in which case you can do:

zless text*.gz

drokmed · 02-18-2008, 12:08 PM

zless is installed!

I knew it had to be something like that.

Thanks!

javaroast · 02-18-2008, 12:09 PM

Actually those are all part of the standard gzip install. The Debian package may install all by default with gzip. Let me check quick.

Ok, here are the files installed with the gzip package:

/bin/gunzip
/bin/gzexe
/bin/gzip
/bin/uncompress
/bin/zcat
/bin/zcmp
/bin/zdiff
/bin/zegrep
/bin/zfgrep
/bin/zforce
/bin/zgrep
/bin/zless
/bin/zmore
/bin/znew

So it looks like you should have zless which will do exactly what you are looking for.

I see you have it great

drokmed · 02-18-2008, 12:15 PM

Thats cool, didn't know it had all of that. I'll try to keep in mind z* versions of cat, more, less, diff, etc.

Thanks again, very helpful!